WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Polar bears were listed on Wednesday
as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because
their sea ice habitat is melting away.

But the new protection was not accompanied by any proposals
to address either climate change, which environmentalists say
causes the deterioration of the bears' habitat, or drilling in
the Arctic for the fossil fuels that spur the climate-warming
greenhouse effect.

In announcing the government's decision one day before a
court-ordered deadline, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne
acknowledged that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions
contributed to the global warming damaging the polar bears'
habitat.

ADVERTISEMENT

"While the legal standards under the Endangered Species Act
compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make
clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or
prevent any sea ice from melting," he said at a briefing.

"Any real solution requires action by all major economies
for it to be effective," Kempthorne said. He also noted he was
taking administrative and regulatory action to ensure this
decision was not "abused to make global warming policies."

The proper forum for combating climate change is among the
world's major economies, Kempthorne said. The Bush
administration has convened the world's worst greenhouse
polluting nations in a series of international meetings.

Polar bears live only in the Arctic and depend on sea ice
as a platform for hunting seals. The U.S. Geological Survey
said two-thirds of the world's polar bears -- some 16,000 --
could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold
true.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain,
who differs sharply with President George W. Bush on climate
change, said he supported the polar bear decision but that a
lot more must be done to address the core issue.

"I think it should have happened a long time ago," said
McCain, an Arizona senator. "It's clearly one of the thousands
of consequences of climate change and I think that now the
first step of listing the polar bear is important."

This is the first time climate change has been a factor in
proposing a threatened status for any U.S. species, and was
spurred on by environmentalists who claimed a limited victory
in Kempthorne's announcement.

'MAJOR STEP FORWARD' WITH 'LOOPHOLES'

"Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act
is a major step forward, but the Bush administration has
proposed using loopholes in the law to allow the greatest
threat to the polar bear -- global warming pollution -- to
continue unabated," Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources
Defense Council said in a statement.

John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation, while
gratified at the listing, saw little practical effect given the
limits of Kempthorne's regulations.

"By denying a direct link between the sources of global
warming pollution and the loss of the polar bears' sea ice
habitat, and by denying that the polar bear will be protected
from oil and gas development, they're willing to sit by and let
the polar bear go extinct," Kostyack said by telephone.

The Endangered Species Act requires that decisions to
protect wildlife be based solely on science, not on economic
factors.

Bill Kovacs of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the
decision and its accompanying regulations, calling it a "common
sense balancing" between environmental and business concerns.

Without the limiting regulations, Kovacs said, all
carbon-emitters in the contiguous United States would have to
go through a consultation process, which he said would have
literally shut down federal activity overnight.

Canada, home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears, will
not for now follow the U.S. lead in listing the animals as
threatened, Environment Minister John Baird indicated.

The government of Nunavut, a territory home to most of
Canada's Inuit people and which manages or co-manages some
15,000 polar bears, expressed disappointment in the U.S.
decision.

"It is unfortunate the (U.S. government) has decided to
disregard facts collected by those who have the greatest
contact and longest history with polar bears," Nunavut Premier
Paul Okalik said in a statement. "The truth is that polar bear
populations are at near record levels."

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko in Washington, David
Ljunggren and Louise Egan in Ottawa; Editing by Peter Cooney)

(For more Reuters information on the environment, see
http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/ )